


A Secret Admirer

by Kivea



Series: Stenny Week [5]
Category: South Park
Genre: Almost Confessions, Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Crush, Birthday Presents, Comedy, Crushes, Gifts, Humor, M/M, Romance, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivea/pseuds/Kivea
Summary: One day, Bebe finds a present that's labelled for Stan. A belated birthday gift that the whole class is convinced is from a secret admirer, and she is determined to find him.But Stan knows who it is. He knows who it is, and he hopes - he hopes so much - that they are an admirer.
Relationships: Stan Marsh/Kenny McCormick
Series: Stenny Week [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977991
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44





	A Secret Admirer

There was a present. There was a present that someone had found in their classroom, with Stan's name on it. Someone being Bebe, specifically, who had told Craig, who had told Clyde, who had told Heidi. It kind of escalated from there. 

There was a present that he didn’t even know was for him until everyone else knew about it. Because he didn’t hear about it from Bebe, he heard about it from Cartman, and it said a lot that everyone knew about it before he even had it in his hands. 

“What the fuck?” Stan furrowed his brow at Cartman who delivered the news. “Where is it then?” 

“Bebe has it.” 

“Bebe has it?” 

“Yeah, that’s what I said, asshole.” 

Kyle jumped in. “Why does Bebe have it? It’s for Stan, why didn’t you get it off her when she told you?” 

“She didn’t tell me, Wendy told me.” 

“What?” 

“ _Wendy told me._ Jesus, it’s like you two don’t know how the fucking grapevine works.” 

“Why didn’t Bebe just bring it to him?” 

“She wants to see him open it,” there was a glint in Cartman’s eye and a smirk on his face. “They think it’s from a secret admirer.” 

There was a present that _belonged to him_ and was being kept _hostage_ because everyone was fucking convinced that he had some kind of secret admirer. 

In his next class with Bebe, she arrived at the same time as the teacher and he didn’t get a chance to ask her what the hell she was playing at. She disappeared too fast, and didn’t wait for him as he called after her. 

He didn’t see the present at all until lunch. He and Kyle got their lunches and made their way over towards their usual table, only to find a crowd waiting for them. He stopped in his tracks and stared wide eyed at the table. 

On one side, with space for him and Kyle to sit, sat Clyde and Token like normal. Opposite them sat Kenny, Butters, and Cartman, with a new addition: Bebe, looking directly at Stan, with a horde of the classmates that shared their lunch around her.

“Jesus,” Stan muttered as he observed the other people standing around their table; various faces from their class, girls handing around over Bebe’s shoulder whispering between themselves. “Are they serious?” 

“C’mon,” Kyle started walking again. “You get your present finally, at least.” 

He followed Kyle, begrudgingly, and sat himself between his best friend and Clyde, who was watching the whole thing unfold with wide eyes as he munched away on his lunch. Stan looked up to make eye contact with Bebe and Cartman, furrowing his brow in hopes he would be show how unimpressed with this whole façade he was. 

Bebe’s smile widened as she slid something across the table. He found it hard to keep up his disapproving scowl. 

It was small. A box, wrapped in plain brown paper, with a Christmas tag attached to it that spelled out his name in blue lettering. As soon as he saw it, his fingers began to itch with the desire to tear into the brow wrapping. 

“Sorry for ignoring you earlier,” Bebe said, her flippant tone betraying exactly how not sorry she was. “I wanted to see you open it. If it’s a secret admirer, I bet there’s some clues as to who it is.” 

“This is stupid,” Stan announced as he sat at the table in the cafeteria, half his class surrounding him with eager eyes, and the present in front of him. “It’s been my birthday, it’s not weird. It probably dropped out of someone’s bag.”

“It doesn’t have their name on it,” Bebe pointed out. “Only yours.” 

“Yeah, if they were going to give it to me directly, they wouldn’t need to put their name on it.” 

“Okay, so why don’t we ask everyone, huh?” Cartman leant back and addressed the group. “Who wants to own up to buying Stan some gay-ass little present?” 

He was met with silence. 

“Well, if no one wants to claim it...” 

“Then it must be a secret admirer!” Heidi pressed. “If it was someone who was just going to buy you a gift and give it to you, they’d have no reason to hide.” 

“Maybe they’re embarrassed after all the fuss you lot have made,” Kyle bit back as he continued to try and eat his food. 

Cartman leered. “Oho, Kyle, what insight. I don’t suppose that you think that way because _you’re_ embarrassed because _you’re_ the secret admirer?” 

Kyle shot a glare across the table. “I’ve given Stan his present already, because I was there on his birthday.” 

"Open it, Stan!” Bebe pressed, eyes locked on the brown wrapping paper. “I want to know what it is!” 

He looked down at the gift, turning it over as if it would help give him some indication as to what it was, or who it was from. The wrapping was perfect, well executed in a way that none of his friends could do, and the paper was plain. The gift tag was written in handwriting he didn’t recognise, bubble writing that reminded him a little more of a middle schooler than one of them. 

He shrugged and brough both hands up to the paper. “Here goes...” 

Everyone watched on with bated breath. Even Kyle had stopped eating his lunch in favour of spectating. 

Inside, there was a black jewellery box. There were a few murmurs of speculation as it was revealed to the class, and Stan did his best to ignore them. 

He felt his heart thumping in his chest as he grasped hold of the lid and opened it. 

Inside sat a bracelet. A metal clasp, with a woven leather strap, and then a beaded strap. Both dark, black leather and slate coloured beads with the occasional gem between them. He didn’t recognise them, but he knew they were different from the flashes of colour. On the metal clasp was an engraving of a ship’s wheel. 

“It’s...jewellery,” Cartman’s voice deflated. “Is that – what does that mean?” 

Bebe shrugged next to him. “No idea. It’s cute, though. Whoever it was has good taste.” 

Stan licked his lips before he spoke, eyes glued to the bracelet as his heart hammered away in his chest. “My other one broke.” 

The table was silent, waiting for him to continue. 

“It broke a few months ago,” he admitted. “It was just – it was some bracelet I got from the zoo, when we went on that school trip.” 

“What, back in middle school?” Token pressed.

“Yeah. I wore it every day, it was really ratty. It broke this year.” 

“Considering how cheaply made they look, it sure lasted you a long time.” 

“Yeah,” he murmured as he turned the bracelet over in his hands. “It did.” 

“Who knew?” Cartman pressed. 

Stan looked up with wide eyes, the magic of the reveal snapped at the question. “What?” 

“Who knew you broke your bracelet?” 

“Oh, I dunno. I broke it on the farm.” 

“So whoever noticed must pay a lot of attention to you,” Bebe started with a smirk. “Sounds like a secret admirer to me.” 

“No!” Stan floundered. “That’s not – it might just be because it’s nice. I don’t think anyone would notice I’d stopped wearing-?” 

“Sounds like a secret admirer, Bebe, I agree,” Cartman was nodding his head, and there was a chorus of agreement from the crowd. 

It was getting out of hand. 

He hoped that would make it less obvious, not more. 

Stan could only watch in horror as the conclusion was made amongst his class. He watched on in horror because he had lied. He didn’t break it at the farm on his own. 

He broke it at Kenny’s house, when they were trying to fix Karen’s old bike, and the blonde had taken it from his wrist and looked up with those big blue eyes and apologised for breaking Stan’s bike and Stan had laughed it off like it was no big deal when he just wanted to sit with Kenny’s hand round his wrist. 

He looked across to where the blonde had been sat, only to find that he’d disappeared. 

He looked over to Kyle, lost and confused, to find the redhead staring back at him with wide eyes and pursed lips, fist pressed against the corner of his mouth.

Because Kyle had been there, googling the instructions on his phone to tell Stan and Kenny as they worked away and had been the one to snap them out of their moment when the bracelet had broken and told them to keep working. 

_Shit._

“Well, there’s only one thing to do now!” Bebe declared as she stood, bright smile on her face full of determination. “We have to try and figure out who it is!” 

“I agree,” Cartman nodded sagely. “We’ll have to go through everyone, individually. See if we can account for them. Narrow it down until there’s only Kyle left.” 

Kyle scoffed. “It’s not me, fatass! You can’t just _decide_ it’s me with no proof!” 

“Oh yeah? Who else is close enough to Stan that they’d notice his dumb little bracelet being gone? Or maybe even been told about it in passing?” 

Stan nudged his knee against his best friends, looking down to return the bracelet to the box and attempt to rewrap it. Kyle simmered quietly but didn’t keep Cartman. 

Instead the boy disappeared with Bebe and the horde behind them, discussing how they were going to conduct their search for Stan’s alleged secret admirer. Stan, who had no interest in figuring it out. Stan, who felt like maybe he was going to have a nervous breakdown. 

“Can we…?” 

“Yeah,” Kyle nodded and stood. “Butters, make sure Clyde doesn’t steal my food, yeah?” 

There was a chipper confirmation from the blonde, and a cry of objection from Clyde as the two Super Best Friends stood and made their way into the quieter hallway. Kyle was looking around with narrowed eyes for any listening ears as Stan hunched his shoulders and began to whisper. 

“Dude, you have to tell me right now if it’s you.” 

“It’s not me,” Kyle said, not a sign of wavering in his voice. “But I’m not the only one who was there when you broke that bracelet, and he sure did slip away quickly at lunch.” 

“What do I do?” Stan asked with a hiss. “I think I made it worse.” 

“This wouldn’t have happened if Kenny had just owned up to it when it first happened,” Kyle argued. “He brought this on himself.” 

“They’re on a witch hunt! Cartman and Bebe, they’re gonna try and figure it out!” 

“He should just say it was him, if it was him. We should ask.” 

“No we shouldn’t!” 

Kyle stopped. He narrowed his eyes, flickering up and down Stan as if working out a puzzle. “Why not?” 

“We - it might not be him,” Stan reasoned. “We don’t know if it is.” 

“Then he can tell us, and we can figure it out together.” 

Stan didn’t have a response, but... 

“Why don’t you want to ask?” 

“It’s - it’s not that I don’t want to ask,” he defended, unable to keep eye contact and instead looked down the hall. “I just...y’know, I don’t wanna make Kenny uncomfortable. That’s all.” 

“Uhuh,” Kyle’s voice took an edge. Stan felt his palms beginning to sweat. “That’s fine. I’ll ask him without you.” 

“No!” 

“Then you ask him without me.” 

“I-I can’t!” 

“Why not, Stan?” Kyle pressed, getting too close for Stan to avoid. 

“I...” 

The answer wasn’t easy. 

“What if...it wasn’t him?” 

Kyle’s brows pulled together in confusion. 

Stan felt a little like a puppy with his tail drooping as he let the feelings become words. “What if it was a mistake, or if it wasn’t him, or if he didn’t mean it like...” 

_Mean it like they all say he did._

It seemed to click in Kyle’s brain in a flash, confusion and frustration making way for a sympathetic but firm look. The redhead backed off at least, giving him space to breathe again as he formed a response for his best friend. 

“Do you like Kenny?” 

Stan grimaced at the question and shrugged. 

“I need an answer.” 

“Maybe?” he groaned in frustration. “I don’t know. I think so? I mean, it’s not – a little while it’s been there, in the back of my brain, but after this whole – this whole secret admirer bullshit it’s kind of…” 

“Made it real?” 

“Yeah.” 

Kyle let out a sigh through his nose. “We don’t have to ask him, but…Cartman might figure it out anyway.” 

“Yeah, I know.” 

“You’re happy to just…deal with that when it happens?” 

He didn’t know if happy was the word he’d use, but… 

“Let’s go finish our lunch,” Kyle suggested. “Just enjoy the rest of the day, and sleep on it, okay? Then tomorrow you can decide if you wanna just let them do their thing, or if you wanna speak to Kenny about it.” 

“Alright.” 

He followed Kyle, going through the motions of having lunch with his friends. Kenny didn’t come back. 

\--

At the end of lunch, he put the bracelet on. 

He spent the remainder of the day playing with it, fingers spinning the beads around and feeling the different textures that made it up. It probably wasn’t cheap. It sure as hell didn’t look cheap. The idea that Kenny spent that much money on him was… 

It was one of the reasons he’d overhead Cartman had written Kenny off, in his drive to prove it was Kyle. Kenny was too poor to spend money on some fancy shit. Probably would’ve just got him a Burger King crown. 

He thought about talking to Karen about it. He assumed that was who had written his name across the tag, so she would know. Maybe she wouldn’t know that Kenny hadn’t given it to Stan directly. But thinking about that just opened another question… 

Why _didn’t_ Kenny give it to him directly?

He’d seen Kenny on his birthday. They’d gone out for a meal, the five of them, Cartman and Butters included. Kyle and Butters had both got him a gift – Kyle because he was his best friend, and Butters because even if he said he didn’t want anything the blonde just liked to give his friends stuff. If Kenny had bought him something, it wouldn’t have been that weird. 

The way it had been described, as Bebe just finding it, made it sound like maybe it had fallen out of his bag. Maybe it didn’t arrive in time for his birthday, or maybe he chickened out of giving it. Maybe he was waiting for the right moment. 

Stan couldn’t stop thinking that maybe it meant more than Kyle’s gift, or Butters’ gift. The more he did the more he knew how disappointed he was going to feel if it turned out it didn’t. Or if it wasn’t even Kenny. 

Because there was always the chance that it wasn’t. 

School finished, and he arrived outside to see Bebe and Cartman with a row of other students in front of them, barking orders on what they planned to do. That they were setting up an interrogation room in Cartman’s basement and they expected each of the South Park kids to stop by that evening for questioning. 

Stan looked beyond them to the gates, seeing Kenny sat on the wall watching them. He sucked in a breath and headed over. 

“Hey.” 

Kenny looked up, blue eyes piercing. “Sup?” 

“Mind if I sit? I’ve got to wait for mom to come get me.” 

A wry grin. “No buses to the farm today?” 

“Ugh, there’s never buses to the farm.” 

“You usually go to Kyle’s after school.” 

Stan shrugged, making himself comfortable on the wall next to the blonde. “He’s got some dumb science club. You not going home?” 

“Yeah, but I figured I’d give those two space to conduct their manhunt.” 

“I heard you’re safe?” 

Kenny looked up with a raised brow. 

Stan looked down at his wrist, unable to keep the eye contact. Stared at the leather band. 

“You not gonna go lead the charge to figure out who it was?” Kenny asked.

Stan looked up, trying to decipher the look on Kenny’s face. Ever the poker face master, Kenny. Ever the talented liar, Kenny. Ever the best keeper of secrets, Kenny. 

There was a twitch in his brow that Stan liked to think maybe was nerves. 

Stan looked down at the bracelet with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I figured I’d just let them do their thing. They’ll probably figure it out eventually.” 

“Don’t you wanna know?” 

“I think I know,” Stan admitted. “I told them all no one was around when I broke my old one, but that wasn’t true.” 

Kenny didn’t comment. 

“But for now...” he swallowed his fear and did his best to make a move. “I’d like to think that person is my secret admirer.” 

He didn’t look up to see the expression on Kenny’s face, but he could feel the intensity of the blue eyes on him. 

A few moments of silence passed between them. A few moments where Stan worried he’d made the wrong move. 

But then Kenny spoke and it made his heart swell: “Maybe they are your admirer. Maybe they just chickened out of giving you your gift.”

“Then I’ll wait for them to be ready to tell me,” Stan declared, daring to look up and meet the bright blue eyes. 

“You might be waiting a while,” Kenny admitted as his brow pulled down. 

“That’s okay. If it’s the person I think it is...” Stan’s eyes roamed Kenny’s face as he played with the beads around his wrist. “Then I’m willing to wait.” 

There was the honk of a horn, and he looked up to see his mom’s car parked waiting for him. He stood up, grabbing his bag and turned to Kenny before he could lose his composure and asked: “Do you want a lift?” 

“If your mom doesn’t mind...?” 

“She won’t. C’mon.” 

They rode in the back together, his mom making polite conversation with Kenny as she asked after him and his family, taking the chance to hear a little more about what was happening in the town. She dropped him off at his door and Stan bid a friendly goodbye before he hopped into the front seat. 

“Did you have a good day at school, Stan?” his mom asked as they pulled away from Kenny’s house. 

Stan’s eyes were pinned to the blonde that was opening his door and disappearing into his house. “Yeah, I did. It was really nice.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoyed this one, even though it took me a while to come up with a concept for it!


End file.
